Little One
by LittleEnglishLass
Summary: The Autobots are no strangers to pain or sadness. The damned war created plenty of that. They've suffered before, but this…this is something beyond comparison. The Allspark is gone forever. And it hurts.


**Hoo, it's been a long while since I wrote anything for TF. Code Geass has took over me recently, and then I had a great idea for an original story which I hope to one day complete and publish, then I got distracted again by Tom Hiddleston's marvellous voice and impossible perfection, and then college got in the way and then Christmas and New Year sneaked up on me and then I encountered personal difficulties and bleeegh…I lost all inspiration is what I'm trying to say. So I sat down and just wrote without any idea for plotlines. It resulted in yet another family fluff one-shot, and surprise, surprise there's a storm in it! Whaaat? I just really, really, really love storms. **

**I adore the whole father/son relationship OP and Bee have. It's very cute, but also completely canon. I'm surprised TF; Prime hasn't explored that idea in depth, since they were so incredibly sneaky to get away with talking about sex-uh, I mean…**_**'interfacing'**_** in the show. ;) You sly, amazing dogs, you know us older fans so well.**

***Note; **I figured it made more sense for the bots to have arrived to Earth in some kind of ship, or at least have had one in orbit. I couldn't think of a name, so I just called it The Xantium. Just roll with stuff like this. It happens a lot in my fics. :) I also know nothing about the technical workings of sparks, so I made it up. Don't sue me if something doesn't make any sense. Besides, this is fanfiction and I can do whatever I want.

Bee talking looks like this;** -bla bla bla-**

**I hope you all enjoy reading.**

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**Little One**

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The timid face peeked out of the hangar door; the dull, peeling paint catching the wandering droplets of moisture in its tiny flaking traps as they succumbed to gravity's inescapable will.

Bumblebee sighed sadly. It had started raining a while ago, and after a stern warning about getting his recently fixed inner wires wet, he had decided it best to avoid the wrath of The Mighty Hatchet and his merciless army of Wrench Demons and Throwable Objects by going indoors to wait for a lull in the weather before he continued his exploration of their new home, and the wilderness around it. However, he'd been forced to reconsider that plan when it _didn't _stop raining all throughout the day.

The rain was much heavier now, and the soft roll of a deep drum could be heard in the distance. There was a storm on the way. Bumblebee shivered slightly.

He loathed storms.

He hated the way everything would go quiet, then all of a sudden the sky would seemingly split open in a cacophony of noise and light. He hated the way the wind would lash down upon the walls of any sanctuary, destroying all serenity within. He hated the never ending drumbeat of the rain against the ground and smooth glass of windows. He hated the awful whip-crack of the lightening. He hated everything about them.

It was too much like a battlefield.

Bumblebee shuddered and pushed the memories down. He'd long since learned to live with the terrors of war, learned how to ignore them, how to put aside his emotions and just get on with the mission at hand. But outside of the battlefield…well now, that was another story.

Suddenly being thrust into a world where there was no war was disturbing to say the least. He was becoming increasingly twitchy, panicked by every little noise and movement. They all were. Every slam of a door became the firing of a weapon, every glint off a window was a sniper waiting to seal their fates, every clang of metal was the sound of soldiers battling for their lives, and every shout would make them wince, remembering the thousands of other voices they had heard screaming for help before they were brutally cut off by the cold, grey grip of death.

Supressing another violent shiver, Bumblebee turned away from the hangar door, and made his way back to the giant starship, _The Xanthium_, concealed inside. A glum smile appeared as he remembered their new human friends asking why it didn't have any glass or covering over the windows, and how Ratchet had explained that Cybertronians could survive in space unaided. Their new friends had been shocked to discover this, and upon the Autobots asking _them _why _their _ships had coverings, had explained how humans would die if exposed to what they called 'the vacuum of space', whatever that fresh nonsense was supposed to mean. When dealing with humans, it could mean anything. As far as Bumblebee knew, a 'vacuum' was some sort of noisy cleaning equipment, but what in the name of Primus did that have to do with space?

Despite their many appealing qualities, humans were also very, very _silly._

Bumblebee walked slowly up the smooth ramp and down the corridor to the main control room, looking around moodily at the large, empty chamber that greeted him. It was late; most of his comrades would be back in their berthrooms, sleeping away the bitter sorrow that gripped them all over the destruction of the Allspark.

Had it really only been two human months?

A fresh wave of agonizing grief clawed at Bumblebee's young spark. Two months since they'd lost the _one _thing that could bring back their home. Their homeland, once gleaming and beautiful was now so blackened and burnt by the eons of war that engulfed its surface, it was almost unrecognisable. And after all the lives given, all the shots fired, blades sharpened, and battles fought, it had been cursed to stay in its sorry state for the rest of eternity.

Nothing had ever hurt so much. Nothing in the universe could compare to the loneliness and agony of the separation of their sparks from the once everlasting presence of the Allspark. Once, it radiated over them always, so reassuring and constant like the sun or the stars at night. But now it was gone.

They were so alone…so…_cold_.

Bumblebee stopped in the middle of the hallway. The silver walls, covered with inlaid symbols shining with the distinctive bright, sparkling blue of energon seemed to grow closer and closer, until they threatened to crush him.

_So cold…I'm so cold…_

A deafening crack of thunder crashed overhead. Bumblebee felt the strength leave his legs as he collapsed, head smacking off the metal floor, and the world around him became distorted and echoing.

_Why am I so cold?_

He was dimly aware of footsteps, a muffled voice and strong arms lifting him. He tried to raise his head, but even the simple action of keeping his optics online proved too difficult a task, and the already faint world faded to black amidst the din of the storm.

_Cold…I'm cold-thunder-walls getting closer-too close-energon-cold, I'm so cold._

His head ached as shreds of half-finished thoughts flashed across his mind. His spark ached. Everything ached. Blurred figures splintered over his vision, and sluggish, almost muted snippets of conversations reaching his audio receptors.

"_Bumblebee! Bee can you hear me?!"_

The youngling wanted to answer, he really did, but the mere thought of waking up enough to do so simply refused to comply in his dull, flickering consciousness.

"_Frag, he's not responding! Bumblebee, wake up. Bee? Primus-damn it! Jazz, will you get that monitor online, LIKE I ASKED YOU TO!"_

"_Ahm doin' it, ahm doin' it! Quit yellin'!"_

The dull fog in Bumblebee's processor seemed to increase, the coldness in his limbs slowly creeping up to his chest, pooling into his spark like an icy wave. The awful aching became an odd weightless sensation, as though…as though he was floating…floating away. How oddly comfortable…he could get used to this…

"_No, no, no, no! Bee, don't you fragging well dare!"_

"_Ratchet!?"_

"_We're losing him! Primus, no, please!"_

"_NO!"_

"_DO SOMETHING!"_

Bumblebee felt himself slip again, until his whole body seemed enveloped in a thick, muffling mist. His spark was freezing now. And it felt…fragile. It felt as though it were made of splintering glass that was about to shatter at any moment. But then, suddenly, he sensed warmth pool into his spark. He felt the pulsing organ grasp desperately at the heat and begin to pull him back, his processor writhed at the unexpected switch and began to ache terribly once again.

"_Bee? Little one, can you hear me?"_

Bumblebee instinctively reacted internally to his commander's voice.

"_Bee, if you can hear me, I need you to be strong for me. I need you to wake up. I know you can do it little one, I know you can. Please wake up...please..."_

The wondrous, soothing baritone he had come to know so well pushed through the remaining fog and another flare of warmth rekindled in the little spark. The scout's optics suddenly onlined, only for them to end up brutally assaulted by the deplorably bright lights of the med-bay. With a weak yelp, he offlined them again and unconsciously let out a small, tired whine more suited to sparklings than his own age group, not that he could bring himself to care right now.

"Ratchet, he has woken."

"Thank Primus for this blessing."

Bee whined again, feeling a horrible stiff numbness in all his limbs. With great difficulty and a pitiful whimper, he raised a shaking hand to his head, which felt like it was going to explode. Gentle arms surrounded the scout and pulled him into an embrace, which he gladly accepted. Bumblebee buried his head close to the pleasantly warm spark of whoever was holding him with another small whine as pain shot through his processor.

"I know little one, I know it hurts." The deep, warm voice of Oprimus soothed. "But do not worry; Ratchet is going to give you something for the pain now that you are online."

"This won't hurt too much Bee, and I'm telling the truth this time."

Bumblebee felt Ratchet gently place a hand on his arm, his voice slightly less scolding than usual. He nodded feebly, before Ratchet's words finally managed to penetrate his dull brain, and he began to panic like a fussy newborn.

**-NO! NO! I WON'T LET YOU!-**

"Oh for the love of Primus…"

**-NO! I DON'T WANT IT!-**

"It's just a painkiller Bee; now stop being so silly and sit still!"

Bee squealed in protest and attempted to squirm out of his leader's grasp, despite the pounding in his head and limbs. He knew he was acting stupid, but…honestly? He didn't particularly give a damn at this point in time. He hated getting injections almost as much as he hated storms and Decepticons and ice planets and the colour purple. Also clowns. They were just downright creepy.

Optimus firmly, but gently stoppered any move the youngling made to escape.

"Bumblebee, that is quite enough."

His tone brooked no argument, and the scout knew better than to persist with his admittedly feeble protests. Burying his head in Optimus' arms once again, he braced himself for the jab he knew was coming, and called out miserably when the needle was pushed through his armour plates and into the sensitive protoform underneath. Thankfully, Ratchet had been doing this longer than Bee's entire lifespan, and the ordeal was over within a few seconds. The medic sighed and stroked the scout's head gently, taking care to avoid the newly acquired dent he had yet to fix.

"There we go, all done."

Bumblebee raised his head, squinting his optics in the bright light as he gazed up at the grouchy medic, who gave him a rare smile.

"Honestly Bee, I bring you in from outside to _prevent _you from suffering any damage, and then you go and collapse! What are we going to do with you?"

**-Love me…feed me…never leave me-**

The two older 'bots laughed at that, though the scout doubted they knew he was quoting a talking orange cat. Bee felt a wave of dizziness overwhelm him and he quickly placed his head onto Optimus' shoulder, small hand gently grasping at the armour covering his leader's spark casing. The Prime smiled and cradled his scout, patting and stroking the younger 'bot's head as they waited for the usual nausea side-effect to pass.

Ratchet smiled over at the two of them. It wasn't an uncommon sight during the war, the little Bee on a medical berth, the mighty Autobot leader gently tending to the every whim of the often finicky scout they all held so dear. The medic's smile became grim as he put the medbay monitor onto a lower setting, aiming to conserve power and not overwork the equipment.

They had almost lost him today. The little scout had come so close to slipping away to The Well, but by nothing short of a miracle had pulled through.

"You're one lucky mech Bee." The medic commented.

Optimus made a noise of approval and nodded down at his scout.

**-What happened? Why did I collapse?- **Bumblebee asked, the light-headedness beginning to wear off. **–I remember being really cold and then everything going dark but then…nothing-**

Optimus looked to Ratchet for the explanation. The medic sighed and pulled up a chair next to the berth Bee was lying on, surveying the smaller bot with his usual stern gaze. Bee blinked and shifted his head to a better position on the Prime's shoulder.

"You little scraplet," Ratchet scolded (lightly), "Do you have any idea what the rest of us have been through these past six hours? I told you _several _times to report to me for a thorough spark scan, and did you listen? No. Typical of you lot, I don't know why I bother sometimes, I really don't."

The scout blinked in confusion. Ratchet exhaled, resigned to explain his findings in the simplest way possible.

"You're only just out of younglinghood, your spark is still very sensitive to the changes in your environment and situation. You've been on a sparkless planet for a long time, when suddenly you're thrust back in the presence of a group you have developed deep familial bonds with. This on its own would not have caused a problem other than, at worst, a few spark palpitations. However, coupled with the fact your spark has had virtually no time to compensate for these changes before being forced into a battle situation, and that the…the Allspark, an extremely powerful artefact we are all linked to was…destroyed in close proximity to you, the problems have very quickly mounted up. You were more linked than the rest of us, being so young and because you were around the Allspark for a good while longer than us, thus it would have reached out to you. Are you following so far?"

Bee nodded slowly.

"Good lad." The medic praised. "Now then, as you've probably guessed, your spark is in no way cut out to deal with these sorts of drastic changes. You're too young to have developed the correct inhibitors and spark shielding that would've stopped things getting this serious. As such, your spark was overwhelmed by the massive disturbances in your basic bonding instincts and promptly began to shut down to protect itself and you. While this is usually a good thing, easy to bring mechs and femmes out of, with your underdeveloped spark it was incredibly difficult to do so, even with the help of Optimus. I don't know how I managed it, but I did. Technically, you should be dead."

Ratchet paused to let it all sink in. The little scout was frowning a little, but nodded after about a minute.

**-What did Optimus do?- **Bumblebee asked, obviously curious to his leader's role in his miraculous recovery. **–You said he helped-**

"Well now," Ratchet said, nodding to the Autobot Commander, "That's a tricky one indeed. I believe it has something to do with the strong familial bond you two have formed over time. Optimus was obviously in distress at seeing you in such a state. His spark, being stronger and more matured, reacted the way it was supposed to. It reached out to protect you best it could, despite you two not having a_ true_ bond. I believe, Optimus; your spark may have given Bumblebee's a small portion of energy. It would explain the sudden stabilisation of energon flow and spark reading. However, I cannot be certain. The mechanisms behind the most basic of bonds were always a mystery to even the greatest minds of Cybertron; I can only make an educated guess as to the medical reasons behind it."

"I see." Optimus nodded, and then turned his gaze to the scout, who had apparently gone back into recharge during Ratchet's explanation.

"Little scraplet." Said medic grumbled, standing up and switching off the less important scanners and tweaking the settings of the others. "From now on I'm calling for mandatory check-ups, since I _obviously_ can't trust you lot to report to me willingly."

"Come now Ratchet, you cannot foist the entirety of the blame upon Bumblebee's young shoulders now, can you?" Optimus asked, the soft humour laced within his velvet baritone betraying his serious words. "Do you remember the day you treated me when I was his age? The circumstances were slightly similar, and as I recall, you did not chide me quite so much. I think perhaps even after all these years; you will always allocate the little ones some respite of responsibility."

Ratchet barked a small laugh as he frowned at a small datapad. "I suppose so. But he better not presume to have any grand ideas of charging around the base with his new little friends any time soon, I want him in here under my supervision for the next few days. There shouldn't be any more problems, but I want to be absolutely sure before I let the little scraplet out of my sight."

"Understood," Optimus nodded, gently placing the scout into a sleeping position on the medical berth and standing up with something akin to a sigh.

The Last Prime watched the spark monitor for a few moments, relishing in the smooth circular symbols registering the normal ebb and flow of a healthy spark. The overflowing sense of relief of Bumblebee's safely still filled his own spark, the suffocating fear slowly being chipped away at with every second that passed.

Optimus allowed himself a few minutes of rest from the worry, and took to simply keeping an eye on the sleeping form of his scout and quietly conversing with Ratchet, before he once again shouldered the responsibility of the title he held and set about creating a mental schedule.

First, he would have to comm the others and inform them of Bee's safety. They had been beside themselves with worry, frustrated of their inability to do anything. He sent off a quick, but detailed report to them, smiling slightly as relief filled messages fired back in mere seconds.

He chose to ignore Jazz's ridiculous request for him to order Bee and Arcee to bond, even though the saboteur made a lengthy and actually somewhat decent argument along the lines of it would strengthen both their young sparks and the fact that everyone knew the two would end up together anyway. He also ignored Ironhide and Chromia's barely disguised outright demanding for permission to shoot something, and clung to the vain hope that the comment about suspiciously familiar weapon discharge marks all over the base on the end of Hound's message was a joke.

Once he had done that, he inwardly groaned, knowing he would have to face the backlash of his sudden leaving during an admittedly tedious meeting with that tenaciously arrogant human he had never cared enough to fully remember the name of. The Last Prime severely doubted the man and his equally irritating colleagues would be any more accommodating when given the explanation.

He liked humans, he truly did, but he often questioned upon their innate insistence of putting utterly hateful beings in authoritative positions. Though, he supposed, recalling that fateful day when he stood before the High Council of Cybertron, his own people had been guilty of the very same grievance. Was it a universal thing?

Before he had time to properly reflect on the matter, the doors to the medbay slid open, signalling the appearance of a rain speckled Elita. Worry was evident in her cornflower blue optics as she swiftly walked over to her sparkmate's side, her gaze falling over the still form of Bee.

"How is he?" She asked, settling herself next to Optimus as he stood next to the medical berth.

"Did you not get my report?" He asked.

"Yes, but…" She stroked Bumblebee's helm softly, "I think perhaps it feels better to hear it straight from the source rather than over a comm link."

Optimus smiled lightly, bringing an arm to rest around the elegant frame of his sparkmate, shifting slightly so she could rest her head in the crook of his neck.

"He'll be fine in the long run." Ratchet stood at the top of the medical berth, engrossed in his data-pad. "I want to keep him here under my watch for a few days, just to be sure. He might have a few palpitations and weak spells for a deca-cycle at most, but after that he should have no more problems."

The two sparkmates nodded their understanding.

Elita sighed, and echoed Ratchet's earlier question.

"Oh Bee, whatever are we going to do with you?"

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**Eh...I hate the ending. But as anyone who stalks me on here knows, I'm the literal worst when it comes to endings. ****I'm not sure about continuing it, as I haven't got any ideas at the moment. Feel free to suggest ideas if you like.**

**Lots of love from your friendly neighbourhood LittleEnglishLass!**

***web-swings away***


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